After yet another sleepless night, Kate knew she had to top up her coffee mug to last the day. But Starbucks was definitely out of her budget.
So, coffee from the break room it was.
Free. Potent. Effective. Perfect for her current needs and financial constraints.
But when she walked in the room, she overheard Bower chatting with Andrews, one of their regular dispatchers. Ignoring the detailed and explicit description of his encounter with a large-breasted, blonde chick the previous night, Kate headed to the machine and filled her stainless-steel travel mug.
Why do men need to be so graphic about sex when they talk to each other?
There was enough of that in their mixed locker room, but now she had to overhear it in the break room as well?
She’d never been one to whine and bitch about feminism and stuff, but was human decency and respect for people’s bodies too much to ask for in the workplace?
As though Bower had read her mind, he spoke louder, making Kate even more uncomfortable.
But Andrews seemed a little more decent than Bower.
“You should probably tone it down a bit,” he said, nudging him with an elbow and nodding toward Kate.
“Pff. That’s just Murphy. I’m not going to shut up on her behalf. She tried to create more work for me the other day. Hey, Murphy, you know that favor you owe me? I have an idea for how you can pay me back…”
Kate thought she knew where he was going with that and wasn’t interested, not even a little. She didn’t take the bait, and as soon as her travel mug was full, she hurried out of the break room.
Best get back to work if I want to impress my supervisor and make a difference in this world, however small it may be.
Every Bostonian had forgotten how to drive—that was the only logical reason for fifteen accidents in the C-11 district alone. Exhausted, Kate returned her patrol car to the parking lot and was about to hit the locker room when the shift supervisor called after her.
“Murphy. Get in here.”
Kate obeyed, wondering what she’d done wrong.
“Results from the detective’s exam are in,” he said as he stepped behind his desk and pointed to the chair in front of it for Kate to sit in.
“So?” she asked excitedly.
As soon as she sat down, a faint aroma of fish reached her nostrils. She swallowed her bile and made an effort to breathe through her mouth.
The supervisor read from a manila folder as he went on with his feedback. “You did well on the exam. Heck, you aced it. You beat the best score in the district, but… no, you’re not ready. They didn’t recommend you based on your file.”
“What do you mean? You said it yourself. I aced the exam…”
“You’re still young. Not mature enough. You need more experience under your belt, among other things.”
What other things?
She took in a deep breath, mostly to absorb the somber news, but her inhalation included more fishiness than her stomach could stand.
“Excuse me,” she said, rushing out of the office toward the bathroom. She couldn’t make it all the way to the toilet; she tossed her cookies in the trashcan by the door. As soon as she was done, she splashed her face with cold water, swished out her mouth, and then left the bathroom.
Her supervisor was waiting right by the door as she exited.
Shit, he probably heard me puke.
“Murphy, what’s going on?” he asked.
Kate shook her head, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. “I must have had a bad egg salad at lunch,” she lied.
He eyed her up and down. “Is that so?” He squinted at her, arching an eyebrow.
Kate raised her shoulders. “Don’t know. What else could it be?”
The sergeant shook his head, his lips pressed together. “And by the way, you may want to keep your thoughts to yourself.”
“What do you mean, Sergeant?”
“Some of your shift mates were talking about you. Just so you know, nobody needs your advice on how to run things. Especially those who’ve been here for a decade longer than you. If you want to stand a chance at becoming a detective, I recommend minding your own business.”
Kate squeezed her fists and tightened her jaw before nodding and walking away, resisting the urge to find out who’d said such things.
No point. It was probably Bower.
Kate returned to the locker room, packed her weapon in her portable locker box, took off her uniform shirt, and then headed home still wearing her boots, T-shirt, and work pants. Due to Matt’s hatred toward firearms, she didn’t normally take her weapons back to the apartment, but with an early-morning court appearance scheduled for tomorrow, it was much easier that way. Matt was just going to have to suck it up.
But her worries about being pregnant had taken over her life. Or at least all of her mental bandwidth.
This has to stop.
I have to find out for real.
I can’t risk puking in front of the sergeant again.
With her weapon safely locked in the trunk of her Subaru, she stopped at Walmart on her way home to pick up a pregnancy test.
Kate walked into the store, found her way to the pharmacy section, and then stared at the selection.
Why are there so many brands? Are the pricier kits more accurate than the others? Nah. The cheaper ones should still work.
After two minutes of scanning and comparing, she settled on the pink box that included two sticks. It was on sale for $8.49. She figured she’d skip lunch once this week or ‘forget’ that Matt didn’t like the no-name brand for a few items on their grocery list and that should make up for the extra expense in her budget. She bought the test and headed out of the busy store and back into her car.
Sitting at a red light twenty minutes away from her apartment, Kate realized she couldn’t bring the pregnancy test home. There was no way she could deal with the results should they somehow—magically and inexplicably—be positive. And Kate was even less ready to talk about it with Matt. The kid issue had been settled a while back. When they’d first met, during one of their earlier dates, he’d mentioned that he wanted kids; she’d replied that she liked her career. They’d settled for ‘Maybe later.’ And that had been the end of the discussion. In two years of dating and nearly two more of married life, the subject had never resurfaced.
She pulled into a McDonald’s lot and parked her car, breathing deeply for courage. Then she grabbed the plastic bag containing the pregnancy test and made for the ladies’ room. Inside the least gross of the two stalls, she opened the box and pulled out the roadmap-sized instruction pamphlet.
Several pages worth of legalese had been included along with the instructions. Kate skimmed her way through the sub-titles until she found the important part: wait five minutes.
Who wrote all this crap?
Seriously, all they needed to write was this:
1- pee on the stick; and
2- wait five minutes while praying to the deity of your choice or making a pact with the devil.
She only had enough pee in her for one shot, so she grabbed both sticks then set the box and its instructions aside. Armed with the two plastic widgets and a semi-full bladder, Kate closed her eyes and let her hopes go down the toilet bowl along with her afternoon coffee.
Never did five minutes last so long.
Sitting in a public bathroom certainly didn’t help either since it involved having her door banged on every thirty seconds or so by some impatient junk-food fanatic.
“Occupied!” Kate said for the umpteenth time.
The knocking was a good distraction, though. She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if the tests gave her a positive result.
Or what if one stick turns out to be positive and the other negative? That’d involve spending more money on another test. Shit.
Mom and Dad, if you’re up there looking at me now, please make those results—both of them—negative.
Kate shook her head.
Wishing for her dead parents to help her had never worked, but who knew? She needed all the help she could get.
She inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and then exhaled.
“Here’s to nothing,” she whispered before holding up the sticks. Both showed the same: two vertical lines. The legend was printed next to the test areas, no need to check the instructions.
“Damn it!” she shouted.
“Hey? Everything okay?” a woman asked from the sink area.
Tears came up, but Kate pushed them back down. “I’m good,” she replied before discarding the sticks, box, and accompanying literature in the garbage overflowing with stinky sanitary napkins.
She washed her hands, not daring to meet her own glance in the mirror.
How is this even possible?
She headed back to her car, lost in her thoughts.
She’d been good. She’d taken her pill every morning between 6:00 and 6:15. Every freaking morning! Except for this week, but she hadn’t had sex with Matt recently. How is this even possible?
She unlocked her door and sat in the driver’s seat. The pharmacist’s expression haunted her for a brief second.
How breakable are these containers? Women were clumsy. Many were stashed in odd places and had probably seen much worse handling than how she’d inadvertently banged it this morning.
Did I get a bad batch of birth-control pills?
Could there have been a recall on them?
How the heck could I be pregnant?
Maybe it was a (double) false positive.
Could there be something in her system that would mimic the hormones the test was designed to detect? This sparked a sliver of hope in her heart. Google would know. She retrieved her phone but saw that it was already 5:25 p.m.
Shit. No time to look into this right now.
She had to get home, so she started her engine.
As she’d feared, the slow-moving traffic caused Kate to arrive at the apartment after Matt, leaving her no time to research what she desperately wanted to know.
“Argh,” Matt said, skipping any kind of cordial greeting as she walked through the door carrying her uniform and duty belt. “You brought your weapons home again?”
“Good evening to you, too, Matt. Hope you had a good day at work.” She hung her belt in the closet and locked her gun in the safe.
When she closed the door to look his way, he was rolling his eyes at her.
“I don’t do it to spite you, you know,” Kate said. “I have an early court hearing. It’s either that or me driving to the station and then back to court. Waste of gas. Waste of time.”
“But I hate guns.”
“We’ve been over this already. I only do it once or twice a month. Max. Come on. Give me a break. I’m exhausted.”
“Who isn’t? You think you’re the only one who works all day?”
“I’m sorry, Matt.”
“What’s for dinner?”
“Give me a few minutes to shower, and then I’ll make something, okay?”
“What I’d give to arrive to a home-cooked meal ready for me.”
Kate decided to let that comment be. No point in arguing over who worked hardest. That was not the way to win an argument or save a marriage that was becoming rockier by the day. While Kate desperately needed to have a serious discussion with him and reestablish their boundaries, she was plain too exhausted—and too emotional—to open this can of worms right now.
Five minutes into her shower, the water was still cold. If it wasn’t warm by now, that meant someone had already used it all up.
Matt’s hair was wet, wasn’t it?
He probably used it all up. Again.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was an intentional move on Matt’s part to get her to forego the shower and cook him dinner immediately. The thought made her seethe, so she pushed it aside. After all, she was only assuming. No point in getting herself worked up over nothing.
They ate their pork chop and mashed potato dinner in silence, which Kate appreciated since it gave her the opportunity to think.
Matt spent most of his time texting someone on his phone, and the beeps of incoming messages were her only distractions from her pregnancy worries.
There just had to be an explanation.
Kate took out her phone and opened the browser to run a search but realized she didn’t even know where to begin. She first needed to know the ingredients in Julia’s healthy tea to determine whether it could mimic pregnancy hormones or not.
Or worse… Could the tea have decreased the efficacy of her birth-control pills?
Oh shit… Maybe that’s what caused it.
Easy enough to find and confirm online once she’d asked Julia what was in it.
And Kate could potentially get the pills analyzed at the police lab to see if they contained abnormally low hormone levels—although using police resources for personal purposes would be difficult to pull off and definitely inappropriate. But it didn’t matter anyway; she’d already put them in the garbage.
Then again, Matt probably hadn’t emptied it.
He never did.
Kate pushed her chair back from the table, the legs of her seat screeching against the hard linoleum floor.
“Where are you going?” Matt asked. “You’re not done eating.”
Kate looked at her half-finished plate. “I have to pee,” she lied.
“Can’t it wait? Can’t we just have dinner together in peace?”
Yeah. As though you haven’t been ignoring me and focusing on whoever you’re texting with?
But that was neither here nor there. Kate knew it was best to keep these thoughts to herself for now. She could just add it to her ever-expanding mental list of things that needed to change in their relationship.
“I should have gone before we sat down. Sorry, but I can’t hold it anymore.”
Matt exhaled loudly then shook his head at her. “Women and their tiny bladders.”
Kate left the kitchen to go to the bathroom.
What an odd thing to say.
Kate closed the bathroom door and looked at the small garbage they kept by the toilet: an empty Target bag covered it. Damn it! Kate clenched her fists. Matt had taken the trouble to empty the garbage. Who would’ve thought?
And today of all days…
Now what?
She didn’t need to pee, so she turned on the faucet to a trickle, just in case Matt could hear her. The last thing she wanted right now was to be caught in a lie, as innocuous as this one was.
Angry Matt’s no fun.
The sound of the running faucet helped her concentrate. Her husband wasn’t good with details. He could have missed something.
Heck, I could have missed one this morning when I tossed them in the trash.
Kate got down on her knees and inspected the floor. She lifted the plunger then the toilet brush. Nothing.
But then she saw a tiny yellow pill nudged against the back of the toilet’s foot. She picked up her little dot of hope and placed it in the useless, tiny pocket of her jeans. Even if he went through her clothing before she had a chance to hide the pill at work, there was no way he’d find it there. As much as he was a control freak, he wasn’t that detail oriented.
She flushed the toilet, just for show, then washed her hands, and returned to the kitchen.
“Feeling better?”
“Much, thanks.” Kate smiled at her husband, who couldn’t have looked more disinterested.
Their dollar-store cutlery clinked against their white Corelle plates as they continued eating. Kate stared at what was left of her meal, pushing a few peas toward her mashed potatoes. She didn’t feel like eating anymore, so she gulped down some of her water while Matt stared at her.
Was he silently judging her for not finishing her plate?
“I’m going to save this for tomorrow’s lunch,” she finally said before standing up, plate in hands.
“As long as you don’t throw it away.”
“Don’t worry. You know I don’t waste food. We can’t afford to.”
“Damn right.”
She walked a few steps to reach the counter and opened the cupboard where they kept their reusable plastic containers. “Did you ask your boss for a raise?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Matt snapped.
She turned to face him. “All of these great deals you’re closing. I don’t have a mind for business, but wouldn’t it make sense to pay the sales team more when they perform well? You’re bringing them lots of business. Lots of money. Shouldn’t they want you to keep up the good work by increasing your commission or something?”
“Get off my back, woman.”
His glance froze her heart.
“Matt, could you please stop calling me ‘woman’? I’m not a whore in a bar. I’m your freaking wife. I don’t know what happened to ‘baby,’ but could you at least call me ‘Kate’ instead of ‘woman’? I’m not stupid, and you know it. I work my ass off all day, and so do you. We don’t splurge on anything. Look at this meal! Freaking canned veggies, bought on sale, meat that was marked fifty-percent off because it was starting to change color, and potatoes. How much more can we trim off from our expenses?”
“You could start by no longer donating money to your uncle.”
“What?” Kate slammed her hands on the counter. “You know I don’t give him much at all. I buy him some groceries and help with utilities when he can’t quite make it. Am I supposed to let my only relative become homeless? Is that what you want me to do, Matt?”
“Are you menstruating again? Is this what this is about?”
“Fuck you, Matt. All I suggested was to ask your boss for a bit more money. You know I can’t ask for a raise at work. I’m busting my ass, but I can’t earn more unless I make detective. And I’m trying as hard as I can to do that. Just ain’t happening.”
“Simple. You should stay home and raise kids instead of putting your life at risk.”
“What? And how the heck would we make ends meet? Less money coming in and an extra mouth to feed? Are you out of your freaking mind?”
He got up and walked over to the garbage can. His foot pushed open the lid, and he scraped a few bites of untouched pork into the garbage.
“Matt! What are you doing?”
He tossed his dish and cutlery in the sink before yelling, “What?”
“You’re lecturing me on money and saving my leftovers while you’re throwing away perfectly good meat?”
“I’ll be eating out with clients tomorrow. I can’t take a lunch bag to a restaurant. You know that.”
“And what about my lunch? You could have just added your meat to it.” Kate exhaled loudly as she pressed shut her container lid. She opened the fridge door and threw her leftovers next to a near-empty yogurt tub before addressing her husband again. “I’m going for a run to clear my head.”
Matt left the kitchen and sat on the couch in front of his big-screen TV, remote in hand. “You’re crazy. It’s dark outside.”
“I can’t stay in this apartment one second longer,” Kate said before heading to the bedroom to change into her workout clothes.
As Kate’s feet pounded the pavement, thoughts bounced in her mind.
Am I going crazy? What’s happening? What’s my marriage turned into? When did we become that couple? Where did the love disappear to?
She checked for oncoming traffic before crossing the intersection.
Did he really bring up kids? Should I read something into his comment tonight? Could he have tampered with my pills?
Kate whizzed past a strolling couple holding hands, reminding her of better days in her relationship with Matt.
Is this all due to financial stress? Or am I imagining things worse than they are because of the test result? Could pregnancy hormones already be tinting my views on life?
Questions followed questions, but answers kept quiet, as though unwilling to participate in a debate that couldn’t be won.
Or am I simply afraid of the real answers?
Just another question in an endless list.
First, she’d have to find out if there was a chance—any chance at all—that her test results were wrong.
A dog barked as she jogged past the bay window it guarded.
The steady thump of Kate’s footsteps echoed in her ears, and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. She wiped them off just as she spotted a man in a dark hoody a few yards ahead of her. After a quick check for cars, Kate crossed the street and continued jogging away from the lone man.
Chances were that she could outrun or beat the shit out of him or anyone who might try to attack her. But Kate knew from on-the-job experience that prevention was always best.
Matt had been right, though. It was dark, and their neighborhood wasn’t the safest, even for a trained cop.
Why are so many streetlights off? I should really report those to the city, so they can be fixed.
A minute later, safely away from the hooded man, questions came back to haunt her.
And why do we have less money now than when I was living alone? Shouldn’t two incomes and one apartment make things easier financially? After all, there’s only one utility bill and one rent to pay. Fewer expenses overall…
Kate hadn’t started to splurge.
That could only mean one thing. Matt had been splurging, but on what?
Did his therapist increase his rates again?
By the time she returned home, Matt was already in bed, snoring.
She had a quick shower—this time with the luxury of hot water—before putting on her PJs. She set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. then slid under the covers next to him. Though she tried to clear her mind, thoughts of her pregnancy floated atop her list of worries that wouldn’t be tucked away for the night.
As sleep started to dim the edges of her conscious mind, breaking down the barriers she constructed to keep herself sane throughout the day, thoughts of the event she had spent so much time forgetting began to creep in.
Bobby.
Her baby brother.
She hadn’t dreamed of him in such a long time, but there he was: his little brown eyes, his tiny hands. She remembered pushing him in his stroller whenever they went for a walk in their old neighborhood.
He’d been so small and delicate, but boy could he ever cry! Louder than a fire alarm. She had held him and rocked him to sleep when Mom would allow her to. She’d liked being responsible for someone else, and she’d loved him so much. She remembered the way he smelled; that weird baby smell that seemed to ooze out of every newborn. She recalled holding his milk bottle.
Ah… The first time she’d tried to feed him mashed carrots. Holy hell, he did not like those.
Most of them had ended up on the kitchen floor, the counters, the walls.
The kitchen walls…
In a flash, those same walls were painted with blood. She looked down at her arms and saw Baby Bobby, clutched against her teenage chest, his body cold and unresponsive.
She felt her heart break again.
“Bobby!” Kate yelped, sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat.
Matt stirred next to her. “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep.”
Kate focused on steadying her shaky hands. She straightened her back and inhaled deeply.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4. Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Bobby’s dead. There’s nothing I can do about it. Mom and Dad are dead. There’s nothing I could have done to prevent it. I’m safe. I’m okay.
It wasn’t her fault.
No, she couldn’t blame herself for their murders while she was out of the house.
There was nothing I could have done to prevent it. She repeated that phrase in her mind once, twice, a dozen times, making it a temporary mantra, just like her psychiatrist had told her to do.
When her breathing finally returned to normal, Kate wiped her face with one hand.
Babies. They need constant protection. They can die if they’re left alone. They’re helpless little creatures. They need love. They need attention.
She looked at Matt lying next to her in their marital bed.
Would raising a baby with him help their relationship? Or would it be the straw that broke the back of their decrepit matrimonial camel?
She looked at the red numbers on her nightstand: 4:05 a.m.
There was no way she’d fall back asleep now, so she rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take a shower and let her tears flow freely without worrying about Matt hearing her.
I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m a grown woman. Bobby died many, many years ago. I have to move on with my life. It doesn’t matter anymore. If those tests are correct, I’ll soon have a baby of my own… I have to get over my past.
Another sliver of hope formed in her mind.
Maybe her period would start tomorrow? But a few seconds of mental juggling made her remember the last time she’d had cramps. It was on her way back from work, after a particularly difficult day with a new officer shadowing her. That had been, what, almost two months ago?
Shit.
Another wave of tears overwhelmed her, and they joined the stream of hot water already running down the drain.
Kate had to accept it. She was pregnant.
Now what?
Could she keep it and get over the memories of Bobby?
There was another option, of course. But could she even consider it? Or would she have to ride this thing out, come hell or high water?